The Way Things Were
by Nuuoa
Summary: She wanted many things. It was as simple as that, but for such a simplicity there were the minor complications of impossible and insanity. Still, she had the chance of wishing on a star. Wishing for the way things were. When he had loved her. Dark JxT


Authors note: This is for the amazing, lovely, talented, vampiristic, spectacular Paradox-Barbarian-Princess, or, ANYYAAAAAA. Sorry for the angst, but since she writes a lot of it, I thought it fitting to dedicate one that is dark, melancholy, and all around... spicy. Unfortunately the spice is bitter, but it is some good seasoning all the same.

Enjoy, and don't kill the author, she worked hard on this.

-Nuuoa Eclaire

Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, the disclaimer in which many attempt wit. I don't have too, of course. It just comes naturally :3. I don't own. But hot crazy man is all mine. So back off! I like 'em that way.

Warnings: Insanity, sexual fantasies described briefly, contemplations of suicide, mild-violence, ANGST.

Full Summary: He wanted many things. She wanted many things. It was as simple as that, but for such a simplicity there was the minor complication of impossible. With the addition of insanity, written in the stars. Still, she had the chance of wishing. Wishing on a broken star, for things to be the way they were. Back to the time when he had loved her.  
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--The Way Things Were--  


"Wishing on a broken star. How I wonder where you are. Heavens above, tainted dreams. Reality renting at the seams. Before the rain of endless fire. Grant me one, my desire."

Only one. The same one from every night. Every night for the past three years.

"That's beautiful dear; I didn't know you wrote poetry." The girl gazing at the stars wrenched herself away from the window.

"Oh, hello Greta." The door of the pitch-black, yet strangely white, bedroom—if it could be called that, opened slightly to reveal a middle-aged woman. Dressed in a normal shirt and brown top, the mental-illness chief nurse was off duty, and had just been making her last rounds before she headed home. Everything and everyone had been accounted for... well, all patients except one. This was probably why there was a girl in this missing man's room, staring blankly out the window, mumbling poetry.

It was a common exchange between them, something that had become a formal causality. Each time the reason that the girl watched the window vanished for a while she would wait for him. It was still no less startling.

"Hello dear, I'm surprised you're still here. Thought you'd be home by now at least, it's nearly midnight."

"Well, you know, he still hasn't been found... so I thought I'd just wait around in his room, see if he snuck in at all."

Why wasn't she surprised.

"You know as well as I do that sometimes it takes days before he comes back. But he always comes back, so please try not to worry. Here, I was just coming in to make the bed for him."

Nothing, sometimes Greta wondered if the constant visitor heard her at all, she could hardly be sure. In fact, it was still so dark in contrast to the pale room, that everything looked dull and gray.

"If it really bugs you that much, you could go and look for him."  


She got an answer this time.

"You're right, I do know, and I may search a bit later. But I just think it'll be tonight, you know. The stars are extra bright tonight, almost earth-bound it seems. I think he'll come just for them."

A pause. The older could not respond, as if nothing could be said to a story she knew only a quarter of. If that.

"What did you wish for?"

"If I told you that, I'd never come true." Greta paused half-way into her patient's room, and a chill settled around her. She cleared her throat and pulled a stray gray hair back into her bun. The girl was facing the window again.

"You really loved him, didn't you? I mean... before the whole insane thing." Greta tried to chuckle, "But I'm not allowed to say that word."The gray strew across the bare white room was growing clearer, and the dreary rose lines of the young woman's lips stretched upwards through the jaded haze.

"I guess." The lines smiled sadly. The gray was slightly lighter now.

Greta felt awkward, she dealt with unsettling situations every day, that was true, but nothing was as unnerving as watching a person get caught in love's web, waiting for the spider. And that spider, was the truth of her job. Because though the people she worked with were there. They weren't.

They just weren't.

"You don't need to come here all the time you know, I'm doing fine by myself. You don't accept money, or gratitude. Darling, don't let yourself get locked up here like everyone else. You could be doing so many other things; it's been three years now. Why don't you go out and save the world?"

The gray was light now, and shone dimly through the sparkling glass window. Greta's breath caught in her throat, for though see had seen many things, she had never before seen a fallen angel. Cascading sun-red hair. Lucid emerald eyes. Full dew lips. The celestial spoke, "I've already saved the world. I just need to save him."

Confused and startled, the old resident nurse of New Olympia Mental Care Hospital watched as the angel flew from one side of the room to the other during a blink, and moved to the spiral stairs, climbing all the way to the barren roof top.

"You're a good person, Theresa." And so the previous anonymous saviour of the world turned and smiled graciously, even though she knew that the nurse was wrong.

"I hope your wish comes true, whatever it is."

"Thank you." Theresa wasn't thankful at all, Greta knew, and slowly, carefully she started making the cold, clean, clean white bed, just in the manner she did every night.

Sterile and lifeless.

_--I Would Stop Running, If I Knew There Was A Chance.-  
_  
Theresa needed to get out of his room. Needed to keep running. Needed to breathe again. Needed to be where his old presence lingered. Be amongst the stars. Even though they winked at her, mocked her, and told stories she already knew.

Tales of Gods and demons. Of seven teenagers spun into one greater than themselves. One were they joined together to up rise against the God of Time, and in the process rescue humanity. Of victory. 

But also tales of a boy. A boy with the world on his shoulders, finally falling under the pressure, and crushed from it. Broken. Not working.

Now away from the magic of mythology, in reality he was taken to be fixed. But you can't fix something without all the parts. He had lost something along the way, and so this tool, toy of a hero remained useless, and put away. Cracked.

Theresa remembered those tales easily, almost as easily to not need to procure thoughts. She ran up the stairs almost aimlessly, only hoping to reach the bitter night air, and maybe even escape these beyond thoughts. The sky was velvet and smooth, and upon it were placed diamonds extra bright. Maybe up there she could wish in peace. Make the wish no one would ever know.

Theresa had escaped the place where he had been, only to find something far worse.

The place where he was.

The broken leader.

Jay.

Theresa felt herself freeze, and her gaze stuck with her. She was watching him now, mid-way in-between trauma and foolish fascination. He almost looked... normal. Normalcy was haunting. Jay was poised on his feet, and dangerously leaning over the edge of the special care facility, while crouching down on his heels. The moon gave a new brilliance to the shine in his messy light brown hair, more dishevelled than it had been in their time together years ago. The brush of luminance touched up the strength of his chin, and the structure of his handsome face, even as much as taking the time of colouring his tan skin. It missed his eyes.

As Theresa once again took control of her movements, Jay never shifted.

"Come up to find me have you?" Theresa hated in when he spoke, she let her sunburst hair cover her face, almost like a wall between him and her.

"Of course Jay, we don't want you to disappear." Not like he hadn't already... Theresa needed another wall to divide her emotions and thoughts.

"Not planning on it. Just watching." Jay seemed so normal, and serene, almost like before. Something struck her vision and she saw him before her. A gust of wind touched his face and rustled his hair. Pasted his average black shirt to his muscled chest.

"Me too." Theresa needed another wall to her tongue.

"Come on Jay, it's cold outside, you can look at the stars from your window. You know? The pretty one that the six of us got installed for your birthday last year, and—"

"They haven't visited in a while."

"Well," Theresa was rarely at a loss for words, but then again, Jay had always had that affect on her, even when he wasn't himself. She guessed it was just something about him either way that stole breath, but for two entirely separate reasons.

"They've been busy."

"And you haven't." Not once did he turn back at her.  


"Well, yes, but—I make time."

"Why are you here." A statement, one with which came his beautiful forgotten face, but not the one from her memories. Theresa's face grew blank, his eyes met hers, but they weren't his. These eyes were black and lifeless and haunted, sickly and shallow and glittered only with mirth. She would never see Jay's eyes again

"Here, let me get help you get down from there..."

Jay leaned over further.

Theresa's dormant heart raced, "Slowly now, just gently stand, and then—"

The boil of Jay's crazed laughter was so abrupt that Theresa almost had no time to process the motion of leaning to standing tip-toed and arms spread, literally waiting for night's cold embrace.

It was the defining image of the limits of end. The last brief disturbingly euphoric seconds before suicide. And though Jay still remained firmly, if anything was still firm, on the roof, Theresa's heart had already gone done with him.

"Get. Back. Now." Silence overthrew them in an instant. Jay got down.

"Aw, that's too bad. Death was waiting for me. He'll be disappointed." A glimmer of something unknown and frightening swayed from Jay's lips. Like a snake, slithering and taunting her. His black eyes glinted.

"You wouldn't have jumped."

"Wouldn't I?" The glint erupted into a glare and bore through her, from her eyes past her heart and over-reaching the stars by miles.

"No?" Theresa hated how her voice went up at the end, turning it into a question. Another question of his sanity.

But that of course was long gone.

"You just don't get it, do you?" Jay hissed darkly and moving like liquid grabbed her by the arms. Theresa grimaced, and to her horror tears leaked from the strain.

"I-I'm not sure I understand—"She was cut off by vicious laughter.

"Of course you don't! No one ever understood. I wasn't as strong as everyone gave me credit. No one really knew me, no one ever really knew Jay. Jay wasn't strong. Jay was weak, and pathetic. I ate him up easily."

"We should go back inside, you aren't feeling well..." Theresa couldn't look at him, couldn't let the monster see herself wanting him to be okay. Loving him.

Jay—the man chuckled, and all at once Theresa knew he had seen right through her, straight into the little girl that hopelessly clung to the last string of hope that said everything was alright, and that 

when the sun once again overtook the moon, that he would come back to her.

"I'm feeling fine, dearest. Never been better, or stronger. I don't want to go back inside, but I do want to tell you want I used to want. Oh yes, you'll like hearing this.

"I had wanted many things. I wanted to go to sleep every night under the stars. I wanted to sail every ocean. I wanted to heal all the pain everyone felt. I wanted to be a hero to the world. I wanted the world to love me. I wanted questions. I wanted answers. I wanted to defeat Cronus. I wanted to go home. I wanted to live. I wanted to die. I wanted to do it all, but I couldn't. I couldn't, dammit!" Jay collapsed to his knees in hysteria desperately pulling her down with him, laughing through his tears.

Theresa didn't protest, she become rigid in his warm strong, but deathly cold arms. She had wanted things too—she wanted things now. She wanted to hold him back, she wanted to stroke his hair and cry. She wanted to place her lips upon his. She wanted to comfort him. With her words everything would be fine, and he would smile and be her all. 'Everything will be okay,' she would say.

But Theresa couldn't say that.

She wasn't allowed to lie.

"That's enough Jay," she tried to wiggle free, but he held tight and his wailing abruptly stopped. Jay leaned forward and the whispers of his breath tickled her ear.

"And in my longing dreams—"

"Greta has a nice comfy bed made for you downstairs—" She rose up a bit, panicked and pulling away from the steamy trail.

"I wanted to make love to you."

Theresa tripped on her way up from hell, and somehow the fall back broke her heart again. She vaguely saw Jay smile wickedly as she grew limp and her skin faded pale.

"To touch you and taste you, and see your chest rise and fall while panting my name until you had no breath left to scream pleasure. And you would be pleasured, and I would take pleasure from it in turn, and enter you and join in your cries until we both collapsed. Then we would start all over again. And after all passion had been played I had wanted to hold you in my arms, and watch your breathing of another sort, and taste and touch you in another way. I wanted to never let you go, hear your slumber, taste the ghosts of your kisses, and touch your heart. For you see...

I did not want, but knew I loved you."

Theresa stared at him wide-eyed and vulnerable, she didn't understand. The man before her did not spit the words to the ground, but instead let them caress her. Did that mean she was right to hope? Right to believe that their leader could come back? No. His violence betrayed him as his nails drew blood from her arms as he watched her silently. The sharp pain was slowly numbing as the little girl Theresa, aimlessly holding onto that fibre of wishes entered reality. No, she did understand.

As much as she had wanted, no, longed to hear him to tell her these things that the true Jay could confess, she had never expected every word to come covered in blood, nor from the lungs of a familiar rich voice, but that was so off-key and flat. It was the first time, and would be the only time 

'love you' would every grace Jay's lips, and despite how obviously twisted it, Theresa almost loved hearing it. It was too good to be true, and the red ooze at her sides proved it false.

Jay—the new Jay was only telling her what had been. The new Jay hated this old part of himself, the him would had loved her, but said it so wonderfully soft just to see her die. Delighted in using the previous knowledge of affection as torture.

Back then she had longed to hear those three words, but in the dream of her fantasy there wasn't an 'ed' at the end, and this was the nightmare of reality.

A grinning Jay finally pried his shaking hands off Theresa and she crashed to the floor hurting, and feeling nothing.

"I think I'll take up that bed now." He was turning away from her, leaving her to rot in her memories and childish wishes.

She wanted to cry, so she did.

The misplaced dying sound stopped the lazy clacks of shoes on tile. She wasn't just crying, she was wailing. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate this, I hate this, I hate myself. It was too much, and her thoughts proved that losing Jay to himself was too much for her to handle. She tried to remember what Atlanta had said when they had defeated Cronus that they had been so lucky not one of them had died. How wrong a person could be.

Jay was dead.

Anyone else could say otherwise, proving it with vital status and the lack of a funeral, but inside Theresa knew the truth. So she continued crying.

"Theresa?" The one broken voice that could have woken her from her grave, made her cross oceans, or made her fly, sounded right once more. Theresa started gasping for air as she forced herself to upturn her face towards the moon and the man that eclipsed it.

Under the starlight sky she was reunited with her past. Her eyes met rich midnight chocolate wide and pleading and shocked at what he had just done. And within them she saw a teenage boy. Young, cautious, but reckless in feelings. Guarded, but free in love and joy. Strong, bold, smart, handsome, respectful, amazing, heroic, hers, and fading once again.

Theresa knew what she wanted, she wanted him to stay, but she also knew that wanting never got you anywhere. So instead of proclaiming her love, or falling begging on the floor, she said a word that could not be turned against her by the other person that inhabited Jay's body. A word that had two meanings, but one of them powerful enough that to the side Theresa so hated it would mean nothing, and to the one she loved it would mean eternity. One that would hopefully free her.

"Goodbye."

Jay was lost in the shadows, and just as quickly she was greeted by the eyes of a stranger.

"You mean goodnight." The malicious grin came back to his face.

"Sure, right, goodnight." Jay snorted at her rushed words.

"Maybe you're the crazy one, not me."

Theresa didn't protest she turned her back to him. Her silhouette watched the stars until the door shut behind him.

"Maybe." The world was silent again, while she knew noise still lingered. Or maybe the noise was just the voices in her head, telling her it was late, and she should sleep. After everything, Theresa doubted she could ever really sleep again; she'd probably spend most of her nights wishing on stars that would never come true. Just like tonight.

She had wished to go back, but now, she didn't know if she could ever move forward, because there was a difference between the way things are—

And the way things were.


End file.
